(Credit: Stephane Bidouze/Shutterstock)
The stick insect may have something else in common with plants besides its stem-like looks.
Plants use wildlife to spread seeds, and, similarly, the stick insect might use wildlife to spread its eggs, a study in the journal Ecology reported this week.
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Most of a stick insect’s life is spent in a circle of trees and bushes, even for those species with wings. The insect would have an evolutionary advantage if it could disper ...read more
This tiny toe tip of a baby Spinosaurus reveals a surprisingly big piece of information about the famous dinosaur. (Credit G. Bindellini)
Big paleontological news can come in teensy packages, as shown by a new study on a fragment of a very young Spinosaurus, one of the most fascinating flesh-eating (in this case, fish-eating) dinosaurs.
You remember Spinosaurus, right? And I’m not talking about its cheesy guest role in the worst of the Jurassic Park sequels.
I’m ...read more
Check out this imagery from the next generation, polar-orbiting NOAA-20 spacecraft, which also heralds improved environmental monitoring
The NOAA-20 satellite captured this infrared image of Tropical Cyclone Mekunu on May 25 as it was approaching Yemen and Oman. (Source: NOAA/UWM/SSEC/CIMSS, William Straka)
A constellation of satellites that monitor the vital signs of our planet just got a new, official member: the next-generation NOAA-20 satellite. It was declared fully op ...read more
(Credit: Thunderstock/Shutterstock)
Vitamin — the first four letters come from the Latin word for “life.” To sustain that, we need these organic compounds in small amounts, but it seems their purpose ends there.
New research reaffirms the counterintuitive notion that vitamin and mineral supplements aren’t the magical panacea we’ve been led to believe. It’s something that researchers have been finding for years, and a meta-analysis, summarizing the ...read more
Human brains are three times bigger than those of our ancestors. Researchers behind a pair of new studies think they’ve found the genes responsible. (Credit Fiddes et al)
With a new pair of studies on a handful of genes unique to the genus Homo, researchers took a big step toward solving one of the most important questions about our evolution — why and how human brains got so big.
Understanding why the Homo brain became significantly larger than th ...read more
Life recolonized the Chicxulub impact crater so fast that bones from now-extinct animals, like this mosasaur, might not have fully decayed yet. (Credit: John Maisano, University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences)
Around 66 million years ago, a city-sized space rock splashed into the Gulf of Mexico and killed 75 percent of life on Earth, including the dinosaurs. We all know that story.
But — at least for the survivors — the aftermath might not have been as hellish as we thought ...read more
The lava fountain from Fissure 8 seen on May 28, 2018. USGS/HVO.
Few things are changing volcano monitoring and hazard planning than drones. A decade ago, it either took expensive and dangerous helicopter flights or approaching eruptions on foot. Today, we can watch volcanic eruptions and their results up close using relatively cheap drones that can fly into craters and over lava flows to see what is happening. This provides vital data for volcanologists watching the volcano to understand how th ...read more
(Credit: Everett Collection/Shutterstock)
From freezing showers to ingesting prickly pear to smoking joints, everyone has a home remedy for alcohol’s notorious afterglow: the hangover. Mongolian men swear by pickled sheep eyes, ancient Egyptians wore necklaces of Alexandrian laurel, and one 17th century English physician even sold a hangover “cure” made with human skulls and dried vipers.
Hangovers are a problem that even predates writing. But today with the aid of modern med ...read more
